War and Turpentine is a novel written by Stefan Hertmans based on notes his grandfather jotted down about his life just before dying, a life marked by an unhappy childhood, the horrific experiences of a soldier on the front lines during the First World War, and his love for a woman who died young. War and Turpentine is also today a larger-than-life show that Jan Lauwers has imagined in collaboration with the musician Rombout Willems. An intense work on the rise of industrialisation, the violence of the Great War, on love, happiness, suffering and the secrets of a life, conceived — as was Isabella’s Room in 2004 — around the extraordinary actress Viviane De Muynck.